


The Hood asks Felicity for help and Gets more than he asked for

by srmiller



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Season 1, Universe Alterations, olicity - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-28
Updated: 2015-09-18
Packaged: 2018-01-10 10:13:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1158406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/srmiller/pseuds/srmiller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What would have happened if it had been the Hood, instead of Oliver Queen, who brought Felicity a bullet-ridden laptop.</p><p>What the Hood doesn’t take in to account is Felicity Smoak doesn’t like mysteries. They need to be solved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The lights went out.

Just the lights.

The bank of servers continued to hum companionably behind her, the screen of her computer still cast a glow on her face, from outside her office door she could see other computers (neglectfully left running after the techs had left for the day) also glowed casting a bizarre pattern of shadows.

Grabbing her phone she pushed her chair back and headed towards the door. Stepping out in to the large, open room filled with cubicles she called out to the emptiness.

“Anyone here?”

“Felicity Smoak.”

She jumped at the voice, her ponytail wrapping around her neck as she turned violently to see where the voice, deep and rough, came from. The silhouette was down hall to her left, a darker shadow amongst the other shadows flickering in the room.

His shoulders were broad, a hood covered his face.

And, ominously, there was a bow in his hand.

“Yes?”

Her voice wavered as her hand gripped the cellphone in her hand tightly, wondering if she could manage to unlock and call 911 without the shadow man-who her shocked brain now realized was the vigilante-noticing.

But no, the moment she turned it on the screen would light up and in this dark room it would be a beacon.

“I’m not here to hurt you.”

“Then you should have found a less menacing way to make your entrance,” she scolded, her voice still not steady but he hadn’t made a move towards hers and hadn’t the man in the hood only gone after the corrupt or the rich?

And anyone who cared to know knew she was neither.

“I need your help.”

Obviously he wasn’t going to apologize for nearly scaring her to death with his theatrics.

She turned so her body faced him and wished she was wearing something slightly more intimidating than a red polka-dot dress and white heels.

“My help? Why would I help you?”

The question seemed to make the man pause before he took a careful step forward, “I’m not here to hurt you.”

“So you said. But I won’t help you hurt someone else.”

Again the pause, “I only bring justice to those who have escaped it.”

“Says you. Who made you the jury? The executioner?”

“I give the men who plague this city a chance to make amends for their wrong doings. It’s their choice not to see the light.”

“Is it?”

“Yes.”

There was something in the way he said the word, hard and certain, which struck a chord with her.

Whether or not it was true, he believed it.

“Why should I trust you? Why should I help you?”

“Because you would be helping the police.”

Clearly not believing him she titled her head, her ponytail swinging down and brushing her shoulder, “You’re working with the police? Cause last time I checked they were putting out an all-points bulletin which said you were a dangerous criminal. They were offering a reward. Maybe I should just call them, I could use a new processor.”

She raised her arm, turning on the cellphone’s screen, “Stop.”

“You said you weren’t going to hurt me.”

“I’m not. I won’t.”

“If you’re working with the cops you shouldn’t mind my calling them, unless you’re hiding something. But of course you are hiding something, your face, your voice-I mean no offense, but you sound like you’ve been smoking three packs a day for about thirty years or so. And I should know, my grandmother used to smoke like-“

“Miss Smoak.”

“Right. Cops.”

“I’m working with Detective Lance, and I’m not going to hurt anyone.”

She crossed her arms, unimpressed.

“If it assures me your help, you have my word.”

She looked away, gathering her thoughts, and he waited silently for thirty seconds while she went through the pros and cons in her head.

Regretfully, she had to give him points for not pushing her to make a decision.

“How do I know you’ll keep your promise?”

“You don’t. I guess you’ll have to trust me.”

“What do you need?”

Setting his bow against the cubicle he reached in to the bag hanging from his shoulders; a bag she hadn’t noticed before. Probably because of the menacing bow and the intimidating quiver of arrows.

Huh, she hadn’t realized she knew the right term.

Holding out what, even in the shadows, she recognized immediately as a laptop he took two steps forward and allowed her to erase the remaining distance at her own pace.

“I need whatever information you can give me from this laptop.”

“How do I get a hold of you?”

“I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“There’s bullet holes,” she realized. Looking back at where his eyes would generally be under the hood, “You think I’m that good?”

“I wouldn’t be here if you weren’t. Goodbye Miss Smoak.”

Looking up from the laptop she saw the mysterious vigilante was already gone.

The lights flickered back on which she thought was a neat trick, and quick enough she nearly lost her footing she rushed back to her office and computer, pulling up a word document and typing out everything she now knew about the vigilante.

The cubicle walls were only five feet tall, and he’d easily been a foot taller than them.

He’d unintentionally stood on a seam of carpet, his left foot on the fraying ends, his right foot, shoulder width away, was inches from the wall. It gave her a rough estimate of how wide his shoulders were.

Using short hand she typed down every word she could remember from their conversation and recognized words which indicated he was from the area; no southern drawl, which (unless he’d learned how to hide it) indicated he was likely from the north. When she’d questioned his being judge, jury and executioner his voice had slipped, losing some of its gravel and she thought he sounded young.

Though “sound young” wasn’t accurate enough to be a fact, it would factor in to who the hood could be.

Also he knew she was good, which meant he had looked in to her at some point and if he’d used the internet there was a small chance she could back trace searches on her name to find out who’d been looking in to her.

And if there were no recent searches, that was indicator in and of itself-it meant someone had access to QC employees or the database so she made a mental note to see who had peaked in to her employee file recently.

All together it wasn’t much, but she hoped it might be enough. She could build a program which would scour any public databases (and maybe a few less public ones) to see who in Starling City matched her specifications.

Young(-ish), athletic, six feet high, shoulder width roughly two feet wide, who was from the area (probably, else why would he care so much about the city?)

She wasn’t sure what she’d do with the information once she had an answer, but what she did know was the Hood had put himself in her path she needed to know who he was.

She didn’t like mysteries, they bugged her.

They needed to be solved.

——————————————————-

Felicity walked in to the large warehouse, her red heels making an unnecessary amount of noise on the concrete floor.

The place was a mess, a work in progress with construction equipment and material strewn about with she thought was organized chaos.

Looking around she saw her intended target, a sandy blonde man roughly six feet tall, wide shoulders, athletic and a native of Starling City.

And sure, he was handsome if you were in to the whole strong jawline, brilliant blue eyed, sexy stubble type.

Which she was not.

Starting now.

He looked over at the sound of her walking towards him and she thought she saw his eyes narrow briefly before relaxing his face in which she now thought was his “I’m charming and we both know it” smile.

“Hi, can I help you?”

Felicity reached in to the bag she carried and pulled out the bullet ridden laptop she’d been given only twelve hours before and held it out towards him.

His eyes widened. Surprise, confusion and probably a little bit of panic filled those blue eyes she absolutely did not dramatically compare to fathomless pools of dangerous water.

“I got the information you requested so I thought I’d save you the trip and myself a heart attack. You should really find another way of introducing yourself you know, shutting off the lights and stepping from the shadow in a little melodramatic, Mr. Queen. But that’s just my opinion.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a year and eight months ago i posted a one shot about what would have happened if the hood came to felicity instead of oliver queen. 
> 
> i had never planned on doing anything more with this but over the past week i couldn't stop thinking about it so i decided to add another chapter. i can't promise i'll continue to update, but here's oliver's reaction to felicity showing up at verdant with a bullet riddled laptop and a knowing smile
> 
> unbeta'd cause that's how i roll

Oliver wasn’t panicking. He’d survived hell, he wasn’t about to be thrown off by a blonde in a ponytail with a pink smile which was vaguely patronizing.

“You’re speechless, I see.”

She sounded so proud of herself he couldn’t help but smile as he shook his head. “Miss Smoak-”

“I knew it!” she interrupted with a grin of her own, her ponytail swinging as she leaned forward. “I never introduced myself and yet somehow you know my name.”

“You work for my mother’s company,” he tried to explain but even as the words tumbled out of his mouth he knew neither of them believed a syllable of it. But since he’d already started slipping, he might as well turn in to the skid.

“And you remember every employee you’ve never met at your mother’s company?” she asked cooly, using the tips of her fingers to push her glasses back in to place. “Mr. Queen-“

“Oliver. Please.”

She smiled as if genuinely pleased he’d offered her the use of his first name and despite himself he was charmed. “Oliver. We can either do this dance until I get a headache-and really, I’d rather not-or you can just admit what we both know to be true. That you’re the vigil-“

He grabbed her arm, letting go almost immediately when he saw her wince (he’d have to get used to casual touching again, not everything was life and death anymore) and instead placed a hand on her back to lead her away from the group of construction workers not far from where they’d stood.

“If you wouldn’t mind keeping your voice down, I’d appreciate it.”

“Oh, so we’re not pretending like you’re not the hood anymore?” she asked, her voice dripping with barely concealed sarcasm and he didn’t know whether to laugh or roll his eyes.

“I don’t know what you think know,” he started but instantly felt like an idiot when she crossed her arms, clearly unimpressed with whatever bullshit story he’d been about to weave. With a heavy sigh he linked his fingers behind his neck and took a moment to reassess a scenario which had quickly spun out of his control.

“How did you find out?”

She nodded and he felt like she was giving him her approval for making the right decision. “Why did you ask me to help you?”

“Because I need someone to help me figure out what was on the computer and I did some research, you were the smartest-“ he cut himself off, realizing the point she was trying to make.

“The problem with smart people is they rarely ever take things at face value,” she explained to him. “So when a hooded vigilante shows up at my place of work dressed in leather with a bow and arrow-I have so many questions about that, by the way. Why the bow and arrow? That seems inefficient. Also, the leather seems like it would be extremely hot in the summer and uncomfortable? Where do you even buy a green leather suit? Not that I want one, I’m not in the market, but-“

“Felicity.”

She stopped at the sound of her name, her eyes refocusing on him and her smile was apologetic. “What I was trying to say was, when presented with a strange man using a voice modulator asking me for a favor my first instinct was to figure who I was doing a favor for.”

“And you figured out it was me.”

“I did. Do you want to know how? Because it was pretty impressive if I do say so myself.”’

Again he smiled, but shook his head. “Right now I’m more interested in what you found on the laptop.”

She held out her hand and within her fingers was a small USB drive, “Here. I put all the information I could recover on this. I didn’t encrypt it because, you know, five years on an island, I wasn’t sure how much you actually remembered about computers and passwords.”

“I’m competent.”

She hummed like she didn’t believe him but at least she had the good grace not to call him out on it and reached into her purse to pull out a small business card. “If you have any more questions please call me instead of popping out of nowhere like mugger. I don’t need the anxiety of thinking every time I work late you’re going come creeping in from the shadows.”

“I don’t creep.”

“If you say so,” she shrugged before turning as if to leave.

He waited until she was a few steps away before calling her name and she turned slowly as if she’d been expecting it.

“Yes?”

“You’re not going to ask me why?”

She tilted her head, looking as if she hadn’t considered asking until he’d brought it up. “I wasn’t entirely sure what I was going to do when I got here,” she admitted. “I trusted you last night, though God only knows why. But trusting the man who says he’s working with the police and trusting Oliver Queen are two different things.”

She had no idea how right she was.

“What made you decide to trust me?”

“I don’t know,” and she sounded exasperated at the truth of it. “But I do. This may turn out to bite me in the ass, and if it does I will show you just good I am with my fingers-“ she winced and he pressed his lips together to repress a smile at the innuendo she clearly hadn’t intended to make.

“I imagine someone who has gone through what you have, has his reasons.” She lowered her voice as if trying not to soften her words, “The news said your body is covered in scars but I imagine your arms and legs aren’t the only things to have come home changed. If you decide you can trust me, you can tell me why you’re doing this. Just...Don’t make me regret trusting you Oliver.”

“I promise, I won’t.”

“Until next time, Mr. Queen.”

He shook his head at her raised voice, as if trying to make sure the construction workers didn’t suspect what they were really talking about.

“Until next time, Miss Smoak.”


End file.
